Yemen urges ground intervention to save country

With the humanitarian situation in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden quickly deteriorating, the country’s ambassador to the UN has called for international ground troops to be sent in.

At least 120 people were reported killed in Aden on Wednesday, including around 40 civilians who died when they were shelled as they tried to escape the besieged city by boat.

According to the UN at least 646 civilians, including 131 children, were killed between 26 March, when coalition airstrikes began, and 5 May – the deaths were caused by both airstrikes and Houthi assaults.

Despite escalating airstrikes on Aden by the Saudi-led coalition, Houthi fighters claimed to have taken control of the key district of al-Tawahi.

But Foreign Minister Reyad Yassin Abdulla who, like President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi is in exile, denied the reports, describing the Houthi militias as “killers of men and children”.

Speaking from a televised news conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Wednesday, Abdulla appealed to the international community for help to stop the Houthi advance in Aden.

The sentiment was echoed by Yemen’s ambassador to the UN, Khaled Al-Yemany, in a letter addressed to the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

Yemany called on the 15-member body to send ground troops into Yemen immediately to curb what he called “barbaric violations against a defenceless population”.

The international community instead called for an immediate ceasefire – the new UN envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, is expected to arrive in Riyadh on Thursday to hold talks with President Hadi.

Ahmed’s consultation process began in France, where he met officials from the office of French President Francois Hollande and the Secretary-General of the Gulf Co-operation Council.

After his meetings in Riyadh, Ahmed will travel to “other regional capitals for further consultations,” according to a UN statement.

Killing civilians, detaining aid workers

As diplomatic efforts restarted, rights groups warned that the humanitarian situation in cities like Aden had become perilous.

In a new report published on Thursday, Human Rights Watch accused pro-Houthi forces, who are fighting alongside troops allied to ousted former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, of killing civilians and detaining aid workers.

In one incident, a 20-year-old law student Sabreen al-Aboos was shot by a sniper wearing military uniform as she walked along a residential street with her uncle.

Her uncle took Aboos to four separate hospitals after she was struck in the chest by a single bullet, but the first three said they could not treat her.

She died later that day in the fourth medical centre.

In a separate incident, HRW says Houthi fighters unlawfully detained a group of 10 aid workers as they tried to deliver supplies to a medical compound in Aden last month.

The aid workers were interrogated daily, according to testimony from one of the group, and accused of attempting to deliver aid to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

“Aden’s civilians are already in dire straits, without being attacked, detained and held hostage,” said Joe Stork, deputy director for HRW’s Middle East and North Africa programme.

“Leaders of the Houthis and other forces need to protect civilians, not abuse and terrorise them.”